The New York Times, Facebook has hired former Apple employees to help design a smartphone branded specifically for the social networking website. The new hires consist of ex-Apple hardware, and software engineers who worked on the iPhone, and one engineer who even worked on the iPad.

If you remember some time ago, the HTC Status was launched with heavy Facebook integration. Unfortunately, the Status was not much of a hit. Also keep in mind that this wasn’t a true Facebook branded device; it only had a Facebook button embedded on its keyboard. Big whoop, right? This could be the reason as to why the Status didn’t sell particularly well. That and the fact that it was a low-end device that nobody cared for.

So what’s with this recent push from Facebook to jump into the mobile arena? Well, according to a Facebook employee, “Mark is worried that if he doesn’t create a mobile phone in the near future that Facebook will simply become an app on other mobile platforms.”

This seems to be a legitimate concern, and while I do commend Zuckerberg’s ambition with this project, the Facebook smartphone — scheduled to launch sometime next year — will most likely not cause an uproar.